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This is a typing short cut for linking to Canadian Forces Maritime Command (1968-present) and Royal Canadian Navy (1910-1968) ship articles named in the format "HMCS Toronto (FFH 333)". Since ship names are italicized in article text, linking to them in the usual manner means typing everything twice, such as [[HMCS Toronto (FFH 333)|HMCS ''Toronto'' (FFH 333)]]. This template halves that to {{HMCS|Toronto|FFH 333}}.

There is an optional third parameter that controls which pieces of text are displayed in the article. Its value is treated as a binary number and will display the corresponding "bits". So setting the 4's bit will display "HMCS", setting the 2's bit will display the ship name, and setting the 1's bit will display the ID. If binary math isn't your thing, refer to these examples:

N.B.: Be careful with the third parameter if not using the second parameter. In the Athabaskan example above, the "|3=2" means set the third parameter to a value of two, while the alternate syntax shows using a pair of pipes, "||2", to position the value two in the third parameter position.

Using an optional display control parameter value of 6 yields the same results as using {{warship}} to create the same link and text, but saving, coincidentally, 6 characters while editing.

{{HMCS|Bonaventure|CVL 22|6}} yields the same results as {{warship|HMCS|Bonaventure|CVL 22}}